WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With late-night TV watching,
Internet surfing and other distractions, Americans are getting
less and less sleep, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention said on Thursday.

And all this sleeplessness can be a nightmare for your
mental and physical health, CDC experts cautioned, calling
sleep loss an under-recognized public health problem.

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The CDC surveyed 19,589 adults in four states. Ten percent
reported they did not get enough sleep or rest every single day
of the prior month, and 38 percent said they did not get enough
in seven or more days in the prior month.

The CDC survey was conducted in New York, Hawaii, Delaware
and Rhode Island, asking people how many days in the prior
month they got insufficient rest or sleep, without asking
specifically how many hours they slept.

But the CDC released nationwide data collected separately
showing that across all age groups, the percentage of adults
reporting sleeping six hours or fewer a night increased from
1985 to 2006.

The National Sleep Foundation recommends adults get seven
to nine hours of sleep a night. Children ages 5 to 12 should
get nine to 11 hours and those 11 to 17 need 8-1/2 to 9-1/2
hours.

SLEEP IS VITAL

"At night, we're doing everything except for sleeping --
we're on the Internet, we may be watching TV. With these new
lifestyles we have kind of taken sleep for granted as something
that we can do when we have time or we can catch up on it on
the weekends," CDC behavioral scientist Lela McKnight-Eily, who
led the study, said in a telephone interview.

"We don't realize that sleep is a vital part of overall
health and that chronic sleep loss is related to both physical
and mental health issues," she added. "It's getting worse."

Darrel Drobnich, National Sleep Foundation chief executive
officer, added that several thousand people die on U.S. roads
yearly in accidents involving drowsy drivers.

"Americans are definitely sleep deprived. They don't get
the amount that even they say that they want," Drobnich said.

The CDC said 50 to 70 million Americans suffer from chronic
sleep loss and sleep disorders in a country of 300 million.

The CDC four-state survey found that younger adults are
more likely than older adults to report getting too little
sleep. It also found overall that 30 percent of respondents
said they got enough sleep every day of the past month, and 33
percent got too little on one to six days in the prior month.

Lela McKnight-Eily urged people who often get too little
sleep to see a doctor to see whether lifestyle issues are to
blame or whether they might have a sleeping disorder. People
can also try to establish a regular sleep schedule and avoid
caffeine or other stimulants before bedtime, she added.